Performance Management Systems: Task-Contextual Dilemma Owing to the Involvement of the Psychological Contract and Organizational Citizenship Behavior GAYE ÖZÇELİ K 1 and CAVİ DE B. UYARGİ L 2 1 Faculty of Communication, İstanbul Bilgi University, 34060, İstanbul, Turkey 2 School of Business, İstanbul University, 34320, İstanbul, Turkey The two dimensions of the performance management system, namely task and contextual performance have received the most attention from various scholars with regard to their contributive role in employees’ goal accomplishment. It has been the case for decades that in addition to task performance; employers have started to use competency evaluations, which usually involve contextual performance dimensions as well. Organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) and the psychological contract (PC) have become more intertwined with performance management systems. The objective of this study is to assess whether competency frameworks in performance management systems are actually incorporating OCBs and PC dimensions. The competency definitions and behavioral indicators within the performance management handbooks of 10 organizations were considered as the data set. The findings reveal that many terms of OCB and PC dimensions are embedded in the competency frameworks. This introductory paper provides important insights helping to restructure the PMS domain in which both task and discretionary behaviors are taken into account when appraising employee success. Keywords: organizational citizenship behavior (OCB); psychological contract (PC); performance management system (PMS); competencies; behavioral indicators Introduction The performance management system (PMS) is one of the most important and controversial areas among the practices of human resource management in organizations. Effective and efficient performance appraisal systems enable just and fair determination of rewards, provide managerial feedback, foster correct assessment of training and development needs and provide human resource planning information (Talukder, 2014). On the other hand, an organization’s performance appraisal system, despite its emphasis, leads to the appraisal system often being controversial and problematic, mainly with respect to the criteria developed and used for appraising performance, the absence of tools directed at improving the system as well as a lack of understanding and/or communication. (Dargham and Abi, 2008; Daoanis, 2012). In traditional performance management approaches, the main appraisal criteria were considered to be based on the job descriptions or the in-role behaviors which is related to the task performance (Griffin et al., 2007; Hawkes and Weathington, 2014). Today however, PMS is regarded as a multidimensional construct (Borman and Motowidlo, 1993; Motowidlo and Van Scotter, 1994; Befort and Hattrup, 2003) and has been argued to involve not only task performance but also contextual performance dimensions by various scholars (Borman and Motowidlo, 1993; Motowidlo and Van Scotter, 1994; Van Scotter, 2000) who have drawn a distinction between the two. Task performance involves those work activities that refer to the organization’s technical core processes and maintenance activities and is prescribe by the formal job role. Contextual performance, on the other hand, refers to those voluntary activities that are discretionary in nature. It has been for decades that in addition to task performance employers have started to consider contextual performance as a fundamental part of the employee performance criteria (Werner, 2000). Correspondence: Gaye Özçelik, Faculty of Communication, İstanbul Bilgi University, 34060, İstanbul, Turkey. E-mail gaye.ozcelik@bilgi.edu.tr European Management Review, (2018) DOI: 10.1111/emre.12167 © 2018 European Academy of Management